A Million Miles Away(48)

Her team was now voting and it was her job to collect the ballots. Kelsey went around to each dancer with a happy face, though she was composing a reason for Peter’s call in her head.

Then, a fourth email read “I’m in KS. Call me ASAP at my home #.” He had included a number with a Kansas area code.

Peter was here? Peter was home. Why was he home? Was he hurt? Kelsey’s stomach dropped, and she felt faint.

She backed away from the group, holding up her phone. “This is an emergency; I’m really sorry.”

As she left the gym, Kelsey caught a glance of Gillian’s face, knotted in concern. She sent a flicker of gratitude to her friend as she exited the school doors, dialed, and then—

“Hello?” The voice sounded like Peter, but it was his home line, so she had to be sure.

“This is K—Michelle Maxfield. May I speak with Peter?”

“Hi! Hi. It’s me.”

She put a hand to her chest. He was safe, at least safe enough to be at home, on the phone. “What happened?”


Five minutes later, she was in the Subaru on her way to El Dorado.

When he gave her the news, Kelsey tried not to sound too relieved.

Peter’s mother had had a stroke, and when his father was able to reach him in Afghanistan, he was given special dispensation to return home temporarily. The stroke turned out to be milder than they initially thought. His mother was now in stable enough condition to wake up on and off, but she was still showing symptoms, so she would be kept at the hospital for observation.

The prairie lining I-70 whipped past her, and now she was deep into the Flint Hills, rising in waves just as she had described to Peter so long ago.

He had asked her to come see him.

“Are you sure?” she had replied, because this was a time for family.

He had told her that aside from his family, she was the only person he wanted to see.

He wanted her there, and she would go to him, and even if she couldn’t touch him, even if she couldn’t put her hands on his face and her mouth on his like she wanted to, she would be happy enough at the sight of him in the same space as her, the sound of his voice, the mere feeling of him in the next room.

It would be enough that he had the ability to enter the same room, and put his hand in hers, to send warmth throughout her body, to her fingertips, her hair.

That Peter would not be just the idea of Peter, even for a short time; this was enough to press her foot down on the gas until the landscape became a blur.

Physical possibilities. Land moving under her tires. The miracle of physics. She would see him in three hours.


At the hospital, Kelsey followed the attendant in scrubs to the second floor, and there, in the hallway waiting for her, Peter stood in his fatigues.

“Peter,” she said.

He turned, and his face lit up. There was the old Peter, the smile that reflected on the walls.

She squeezed him, feeling the chain of his dog tags against her chest. “Did you come here straight from the plane?”

“This morning,” he said, still holding her. “I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”

Peter took her hand, leading her into the room. Carnations, daisies, and chrysanthemums bloomed from every corner, covering up the smell of stale bleach.

Peter’s mother was pale but sitting up, her hospital gown under a zip-up sweatshirt that read EL DORADO WILDCATS.

She looked at Kelsey with the same blue eyes Peter had.

“This is my mom, Cathy.”

Kelsey smiled and found another pair of blue eyes in a girl slightly younger and shorter than herself, with sandy hair like Peter’s, pulled into a high ponytail. “That’s my sister, Meg.”

A stocky, brown-haired man with a thick mustache nodded at Kelsey and put an arm around his daughter. “And my dad, Bill.”

Peter touched the small of her back. “Everyone,” he said, “this is Michelle.”

“Hello,” Kelsey said, waving to all of them and none of them, trying to unclench her jaw at the sound of Michelle’s name. “I’m glad you’re all right, Mrs. Farrow. It’s so wonderful to meet you.”

Peter’s mother gave her a small smile in response.

“Nice to meet you in person. Is it one ‘l’ or two?” his father asked.

People used to ask Michelle how to spell her name all the time. This was Peter’s family she was deceiving, the people he trusted most in the world. The lie had sprouted another branch.

“Two ‘l’s,’” Kelsey said with a forced smile, and looked at the floor.

“Where do you go to school?” his sister asked.

“Lawrence High.”

Peter began to tell them about Paris, and occasionally, Kelsey would jump in with a detail.

Every time she spoke, his mother looked at her as if she had popped out of the floor. Which was understandable, because she had kind of done just that.

Peter and his father started talking about how the KU basketball team had performed in the NCAA championship, how much of the season he had missed overseas.

Peter’s sister pulled her mother’s blanket around her legs, glancing at Kelsey.

Kelsey wished she had been painted white to blend in with the wall.

She was happy Peter wanted her to meet his family, but the smell of flowers and all those blue eyes looking at her, wondering…